2020 Authors
The 2020 MV Authors Series was presented virtually.
Details and Videos of the 2020 Author Series Events are below…

Thursday, August 13
The Black Lives Matter Movement and the Fight for Racial Justice

The Black Lives Matter movement has been fueled by the country's punitive history of incarceration and government-sanctioned violence toward African Americans and powered by the pervasive presence of social media.  It has evolved from a twitter hashtag into this generation’s civil rights movement. Join these authors, activists and scholars for an important and timely discussion on racial history, social justice and resistance.

Kiese Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi.  He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi and served as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Nonfiction at the University of Iowa in Fall 2017. Laymon is the author of the novel, Long Division, a collection of essays,  How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and a memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir.  Heavy, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal, the LA Times Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose and Audible’s Audiobook of the Year, was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by the The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, and the Washington Post, among others. Laymon lives in Oxford, Mississippi. 

Barbara Y. Phillips is a social justice activist, scholar and writer. She was an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and a civil rights litigator specializing in voting rights as partner at a law firm and as staff attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.  She is on the board of directors of the Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights and has served on the boards of other organizations devoted to women’s rights, voting rights, economic development and social justice. Her publications includeThe Legacy of Other Social Justice Movements andThe Trojan Horse Called “Diversity.”  She lives in Oxford, Mississippi and spends summers on Martha's Vineyard. 

David W. Blight  is a teacher, scholar and public historian.  He is a professor of American History,  African American Studies, and American Studies, and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Blight  previously taught at Amherst College and Cambridge University.  He is the author or editor of a dozen books, most recently: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom which won the Pulitzer Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Bancroft Prize, among others.  He writes frequently on abolitionism, American historical memory, and African American intellectual and cultural history. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut. 

Kenneth W. Mack is a Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History at Harvard University as well as the co-faculty leader of the Harvard Law School Program on Law and History.  Mack is the author of several books including Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and a National Book Festival Selection.  He is also the co-editor of The New Black: What Has Changed – And What Has Not – With Race in America. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts and spends summers on Martha's Vineyard.

Sunday, August 9
Supreme Analysis: An Evening on the Court

This spring, three important new books on the Supreme Court were published with each providing a unique window into the Court's operations and decision making. As the Court issues its final decisions in this astonishing year, these Court watchers will provide a comprehensive view of the Court, where it is coming from and where it is going. Dahlia Lithwick will be the moderator for this "don’t miss” event.

ADAM COHEN is an award winning journalist, lawyer and author of five books. Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck was named to the longlist for the 2016 National Book Award. A former public interest lawyer who worked with the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cohen also was a member of the New York Time Editorial Board and is Co-Editor of the National Book Review. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and lives in New York City. In Supreme Inequality, Adam Cohen examines the Court's role in contributing to the nation's soaring level of economic inequality. Many of the greatest successes of the Warren Court, in areas such as school desegregation, voting rights, and protecting workers, have been abandoned in recent years in favor of rulings that protect corporations and privileged Americans, who tend to be white, wealthy, and powerful.

RICHARD LAZARUS is the Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law at Harvard University, where he teaches environmental law. He has represented governments and environmental groups in 40 Supreme Court cases, With Chief Justice Roberts, he co-teaches a course on the history of the Supreme Court. Lazarus was founding director of Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute. A graduate of the University of Illinois and Harvard Law School, he lives in Cambridge, MA and have been a life long summer resident of Martha’s Vineyard. The Rule of Five is a gripping story of the most important environmental law case ever decided by the Supreme Court. While examining how an unlikely team of lawyers and climate activists overcame conservative opposition to win what was considered an impossible case, Harvard Law School Professor Richard Lazarus reveals the personal dynamics of the Justices and the workings of the Court. 

RUTH MARCUS is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and Deputy Editor of the Post’s editorial page. Marcus has covered every major institution in Washington, including the Supreme Court, The White House, and Congress, and has written about judicial confirmation battles stretching back to Robert Bork in 1987. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, she was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2007. She lives in Maryland. Supreme Ambition explores the Republicans' plan, launched 30 years ago, to takeover the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh set his sights on the Court right out of law school. Washington Post journalist and legal expert Ruth Marcus goes behind the scenes to document the inside story of how their supreme ambition triumphed.

Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate and has penned Slate’s "Supreme Court Dispatches" and "Jurisprudence" columns since 1999. She is also host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the law and the Supreme Court. Ms. Lithwick was awarded the Online News Association's award for online commentary in 2001. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School.

Sunday, August 2
Erik Larson
The Splendid and the Vile
in conversation with Amor Towles

Master storyteller, Erik Larson provides an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz. At a time when our country is desperate for true leadership, Churchill's example of leadership under unprecedented crisis is inspiring. The Splendid and the Vile is a #1 NYTimes bestseller. Amor Towles, author of the the bestselling novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, will be in discussion with Mr. Larson.  

Thursday, July 30
Sarah Broom
The Yellow House
in conversation with Thelma Golden

Sarah Broom's outstanding book, The Yellow House, is a memoir of a dilapidated and beloved house but also the story of New Orleans, its neglected, impoverished neighborhoods, and its Black population who are underemployed, underpaid and essential to the city's greatness. The Yellow House was the 2019 Non-Fiction National Book Award winner. Ms. Broom will be in conversation with Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, the world's leading institution devoted to visual art by artists of African descent.